NFL Blitz

Reviews / previews

Review: NFL Blitz

It's fast-paced, its graphics are cartoonish and fantastical in a player-as-superhero sort of way, the crunching sound effects and voiceovers are perfect, and it's one of the most addictive two-player games around right now.

If you've been hoarding your quarters for laundry instead of the arcade, you've missed out on last year's arcade hit from Midway. The PC version is as faithful a port as I've ever seen-right down to the numerous cheat codes (see the Cheats section this issue).

You don't have to really know anything about football to enjoy Blitz. It helps, but the three-button game and simplified football rules make it approachable for anyone. You get seven guys on a team. You have 15 plays on offense and 9 on defense.

What more do you need? Pick a play, hike the ball, push one button to jump, another to pass the ball to one of three receivers, and another for turbo-speed bursts. Push turbo and the jump button and you'll jump higher. Push turbo plus tackle and you'll tackle harder. You get the idea-it's simple. Combine that with the "anything goes" football rules (no pesky pass-interference penalties, no late-hit penalties-no penalties at all) and you have an entertaining and action-packed "football" game that stresses scoring.

Now here's the part where we PC gamers climb up on the soapbox and talk about standards in the PC-gaming market. We have PCs, not arcade machines or consoles. We want options. We want to fiddle with stuff. We want to set up dream playoff brackets and trade players and take our team through the season into the playoffs and all the way to the Super Bowl.

No dice. I said it was a faithful arcade port, and I meant it. Once you've mastered the plays and the novelty of the outlandish tackles and TD celebrations wears off, the reasons to keep Blitzing single-player are statistical-perhaps you're determined to get listed in the Top 5 of every offensive and defensive statistical category, or make the "Grand Master" board, accomplished by beating all 30 teams.

While the single-player mode is a bit shallow, multiplayer is a blast. The onscreen taunting and antics of the players combined with the hilarious announcing really get the adrenaline going. Blitz games become button-pounding festivals of smack-talking, double-sacking, bomb-throwing brilliance. We played til our hands (and throats) were sore.

But again, this is a strict arcade port. Multiplayer's limited to two players on one machine. No modem to modem, no LAN, and certainly no TCP/IP. Those options are being investigated for NFL Blitz 99, a four-player version that's in arcades now and due on your PC next summer.

Blitz does fumble in a few areas-about one in four games froze up on me. And because the arcade box uses the same 3Dfx chips as on a Voodoo board, this game is primed for that card (check the requirements below for 3Dfx vs. D3D systems).

But if you have the hardware and a need for some in-your-face, hard-hitting, footballish fun, you won't go wrong with Blitz.-- Willem Knibbe / GamePro